Elden Ring is too hard... so I built a robot to play it for me

0:00 Elden ring is a hard video game and these bosses are

0:04 no joke when you finally beat a boss after initially getting crushed

0:10 then studying its move set discovering where you can hurt them it

0:15 feels like you've actually achieved something from software the people who made

0:20 Elden ring and dark souls and bloodborne and sakiro employ a number

0:25 of tactics to gain the perfect level of difficulty and sometimes

0:31 they get it wrong for the most part this game is excellent

0:35 you can study the bosses and time your attacks so they land

0:38 crisp right in that punish window and it feels fantastic

0:43 but the developers are not shy of using some sneaky tactics to derail

0:48 your run oh look there's another one of those [Music] red okay

1:00 some would say sneaky others would call this kind of thing boo

1:04 in the base game it was tolerable sure occasionally you get squished

1:08 by a giant ball that there is no way you could have

1:11 known about but overall the game feels fair then the DLC shadow

1:17 of the air tree came out as an expansion to the base

1:20 game this DLC is so enormous so deep and Rich and gorgeous

1:26 and enigmatic it is an entire game in and off itself

1:30 and let's not beat around a bush it is a masterpiece

1:34 the whole Elden ring package is an absolute Masterpiece but and this is

1:40 a large voluptuous but with this DLC they gone and up

1:45 The Bu there's BS everywhere here

1:57 teleporting backstabbing enemies this horri maze

2:00 building these guys but the nonsense reaches a climactic peak right

2:05 at the end the final boss for a start this guy has

2:09 been resurrected from the dead his attacks are so hard-hitting so fast

2:15 so definitively unfair I mean this Comet thing he does as far

2:20 as I can tell it is completely undodgeable right we're close

2:27 there he is here what that what he's weak to almost nothing

2:35 glitches your camera every time and has a boatload of Health

2:39 something has to be done about this so that's what I'm going

2:43 to do I'm going to level the playing field with some

2:46 of my own BS there are three ways to be better in Elden

2:50 ring you can just get good at the game you can get

2:54 better equipment that deals more damage or protects you more or you

2:58 can level up leveling up makes you stronger allows you to take

3:02 more damage use more weapons and carry more armor but leveling

3:06 in Elden ring is hard the price for each additional level

3:10 in runes increases exponentially going from level one to level two costs

3:15 just 700 runes but going from the penultimate level to the maximum

3:20 level costs 9 million it is almost impossible to hold that many

3:25 runes at one time you'd have to beat the final boss

3:29 20 s over to gain that many and if you die you

3:32 lose all your currency basically the game wants you to get

3:36 to level about 150 and then just stop leveling up despite the max

3:40 level being 713 after level about 200 increasing your level becomes

3:46 so burdensome and has such diminishing returns the game is basically just

3:51 saying listen that's enough just get better however the game does

3:57 permit some form of a agriculture if you know this area welcome

4:03 back fellow Farmers here we have a bunch of sleeping enemies

4:08 just a waiting Slaughter right next to a spawn point you can

4:12 simply kill these guys respawn and repeat and rack up the runes

4:17 so these guys here are all just fast asleep and because

4:23 this is a reasonably high level area of the game you can

4:30 just kill them so this guy here fast asleep 2,000 runes per

4:39 kill however if I use this sword here which you get actually

4:44 ironically by completing the base game I can kill all of them

4:50 and get 42,000 runes per cycle like you can just reset

4:59 run back and those guys are all just respawned ready to be

5:07 slaughtered with this sword so that's we got 100,000 runes already which

5:13 naively you might think that is a lot but if I go

5:16 to status that the runes needed for one additional level is 246,000

5:23 at this point so it takes a while to do this so

5:28 let's just do some calculations here I have to kill 800,000

5:35 of those guys to to reach the max level so there's about

5:38 15 of them here so per run let's say we can

5:42 get 40,000 that's about the average so that's 40,000 runs assuming each

5:49 one takes me 10 seconds let's divide that by would still take

5:53 me 111 hours like if I did this absolutely perfectly every single

6:00 time to get to the max level the game is clearly

6:03 designed so that when you get to a certain point it just

6:07 doesn't want you to level up anymore it just wants you

6:09 to get better at the game and just play the game to do

6:12 this for 100 or 120 hours would be mind numbing that's

6:16 like doing this as a full-time job for 2 and 1 half

6:19 weeks straight but with all that sweet sweet cash 1.6 billion runes

6:25 you could have maximum health maximum stamina maximum FP maximum um equipment

6:30 load you could probably run through bosses like a hot knife through

6:34 butter but who's got 100 plus hours to spare just to farm

6:39 runes well who says I have to do it what if

6:46 instead of manually farming 1.6 billion runes I could build a machine

6:51 to do it for me a machine that plays Elden ring whilst

6:55 I sleep and just murders enemies for hours and hours on it

7:00 that's it that's how I'm going to even the playing field

7:04 I'm going to get my character to the max level but there

7:08 are some stipulations I am a man with a moral code

7:13 I don't want to Simply cheat at least not from the game's

7:16 perspective I want to operate within the rules of the game so

7:20 here are some of the statutes that I must adhere to no

7:25 software running on the PC or Xbox or whatever except Elder

7:28 ring no sneaky extra code running in the background no modifying Hardware

7:33 like mice or keyboards or controllers got to be stock everything

7:37 and no mods to the actual game it has to be vanilla Elden

7:40 ring plus its DLC essentially the game has to believe that I'm

7:44 just some sad act sitting farming runes for a 100 hours

7:47 straight so the entire PC hardware and software must be standard basically

7:54 what I'm saying is I have to build a robot so here

7:56 we go this is day one our zero so we need

8:01 to build a robot that plays Elden ring the first problem to be

8:06 solved is clearly how do you push a button or a key

8:10 I had an idea that I could use solenoids these are

8:12 like little mechanical fingers when you apply a voltage they can

8:16 push stuff solenoids can famously be found in pinball machines but also

8:23 everywhere like car doors and hydraulic valves I bought the smallest one

8:27 I could find since it only needs to press a single key

8:30 on a keyboard but buying small was a bad idea that is

8:37 that is Toasty oh that's too hot to to hold we

8:41 may also have some other wiring issues excellent build quality

8:51 on these solenoids the solution was a bigger solenoid and using less power

8:57 but in order to control Power I need to use a switch

9:01 or in this case a transistor I'm going to turn on and off

9:05 the solenoids with this this is a transistor as a mosfit

9:10 um I think there's 19 billion of these in the newest iPhone

9:15 chip obviously they're a lot smaller I'm going to use

9:18 these as switches to control each of the Sol noid to switch them

9:21 on and off and I can control this with the Arduino

9:32 and after lots of fa we have our mechanical finger that's not

9:39 hot at all and it can press a key on a keyboard

9:45 yeah that work nice next we need a way to mount

9:49 these so that they can hover over the keyboard now I could

9:52 learn to weld and build some frame to hold the soleno over

9:55 the keys or become a carpenter and build something out of wood

9:58 or I could model something and 3D print it if I had

10:01 a printer but then I realized I've been 3D printing stuff without

10:05 a printer since I was 8 years old this is my basic

10:26 idea this goes over the keyboard so the keyboard can slide

10:29 in here then the solenoid will be glued onto this somehow and it

10:36 will push the key and I think we can give it

10:40 like a better a better base with one of these should be

10:43 able to fine-tune the height of the solenoid by just adding

10:47 thinner blocks on I think not the way to do this um

10:56 am I going to blow someone up here [Music] yeah that's

11:04 definitely pushing that down wait it down a little bit that should

11:10 be better yeah look at that works so well so all I

11:18 need is six more solenoids all mounted on the Lego and then

11:22 some code to time my game play and uh we should

11:26 be done now we need six buttons as a minimum to farm

11:33 an Elden ring which means I need six sets of electronics

11:37 this Montage makes it look like I know what I'm doing but I

11:40 blew up four of these transistors by getting this wrong these dials

11:43 stop current flowing the wrong way when the solenoids are Switched

11:46 Off and these resistors make sure the voltage goes to zero

11:50 when the system is off so off means off then each switch

11:54 or transistor is simply plugged into the Arduino after that the six

11:59 solenoids are installed on the Lego frame and with some minor height tweaking

12:04 we have built a robot that can press keys on a keyboard

12:07 all right the build is complete and it's a bit juny

12:10 have a look this is a little switch just to stop

12:13 and start the program so I can if it's going wrong I can

12:16 stop it um and it's not you can see it's not actually

12:19 glued to the Des um but it is quite stable the Arduino

12:24 is not connected to this PC it should just run by itself

12:28 not conect connected to that [Music] [Music] PC so that code

12:50 there is just running through each solenoid just testing if it actually

12:53 pushes down and presses the key which it does but that is

12:56 not playing Elden ring so now we need to fire up

12:59 ring and see if we can time those key presses so

13:03 that it farms for me and make it robust enough so

13:07 that I don't die and lose all the progress I made I'm also

13:10 a bit concerned that Elden ring has some sort of system

13:12 in it that checks for like exactly the same key presses repeated over

13:17 and over again and like kicks you out the game

13:19 for cheating even though I don't regard this as cheating because it's

13:22 a robot all right so I'm taking a guess at what you

13:25 need to do so you need to run forward for about 2

13:28 seconds seconds then run left for about half a second then

13:34 forward again then you need to attack which is T to convert

13:39 a Lego set that mindlessly mashes Keys into a rune farming robot

13:45 all that is required is to perfect the timing of the solenoids

13:48 to Loop the farming action over and over and over and surprisingly

13:54 this was extremely easy to do this one is a little

13:58 bit this code is a little bit better so forward left forward

14:17 210 yes that's it that's it that's the maximum amount of runes

14:20 so 212,000 I can't actually believe how quickly it took me

14:23 to just perfect the little button presses so that this actually works

14:27 but this robot is farming for me right now okay I just

14:32 went for a coffee I've come back it's about an hour and we

14:37 have farmed 10 million runes which is is is loads the game

14:46 has not booted me out yet so I don't think Elden

14:49 ring has a system for detecting like identical inputs just running

14:54 for hours and hours and hours so I think I can leave

14:58 this indefinitely what I'm going to do is I'm going to leave

15:03 it to run till tomorrow morning hopefully the solenoid don't burn

15:07 out that everything stays intact and I should have about 90

15:14 million runes by the time I got home thank God I built

15:18 this in the studio not in the house cuz this noise is

15:21 terrible [Music] okay so it's been 26 hours I got a little

15:35 bit held up I left it running this whole time and amazingly

15:38 nothing has failed Elden ring hasn't kicked me out the Lego hasn't

15:42 broken the solenoids haven't burned out the Arduino hasn't tripped up

15:45 and I have 182 million runes to spend unfortunately I need 1.6 billion

15:54 to max out so that is about 10 days yeah 10 times

15:59 what I've just done so I'm just going to let this run

16:01 and check on it every day make sure uh nothing has

16:04 went wrong and just keep on [Music] farming holy mackerel look

16:20 at this number here 996 million this we guy has been farming

16:29 absolutely nonstop and we are at an incredible almost 1 billion runes you

16:36 can only hold 999 mil 999,999 runes so what happens when

16:43 you get more than that I'm not sure if anyone's actually ever

16:48 tried because anyone in the right mind would take all these runes

16:52 and just immediately level up so that you have none left so

16:54 that if you die you don't lose any oh I think

16:58 we did it I think we did it what happens now what

17:01 happens now we're maxed out we Max that what happens now nothing

17:16 happens do you go you don't get any runes well that was

17:28 slightly anti climactic when you hit 999 million 999,999 runes you

17:35 just when you kill something you just don't get any more runes

17:38 it doesn't add it to your total so you just stay

17:40 at just one under a billion runes but a billion runes still isn't

17:45 enough to level up all the way so I need

17:47 to level up burn those runes and then [Laughter] continue we're going

17:57 to farm another 600 million and Max this out good job Little

18:12 Robot you did a fantastic job so the Rune farming robot was

18:16 a success it successfully farmed 1.6 billion runes for me so I'm

18:21 going to play this on my good PC at home and see

18:24 what it's like to play with a fully maxed out level [Music]

18:57 oh now with a maxed out character it's time to walk through

19:06 the final boss like he's nothing come at me bro like

19:16 that is [Music] unavoidable like how do you avoid that perhaps I

19:32 simply wasn't warmed up God that's such b run away from these Dodge

19:47 towards [Music] them like what like [Music] ex well this abs

19:58 a story of success and failure stupid camera sure you can

20:05 make a robot that can play Elden ring for you like how

20:10 am I supposed to work with that camera how can I work

20:11 with that camera that's impossible and you can use it to farm

20:14 enough runes to reach the max level what that what not

20:23 this time you but if you suck this game will humble you

20:29 regardless of what you [Music] do yes you oh Jesus had

20:42 to use the shield and everything like had to go full on Noob

20:45 mode had to top up all the health there you go

20:50 Elden ring what you do if you're like me and prefer learning

20:55 through problem solving and by doing like I I did in this video

20:59 as opposed to reading or simply watching a lecture then you

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21:26 which clearly in my opinion is the most effective way to learn

21:31 something I wanted to highlight was Brilliance programming courses which are

21:34 a super easy way to build your programming foundations and learn real world

21:39 applications what I love is that you can start building programs

21:42 on day one with a built-in drag and drop editor you'll learn

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21:50 my code for this robot that I built in this episode is very

21:52 simple but these are the things I use to code it

21:55 the foundational programming Concepts all of brilliant's

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22:13 knowledge or just learning so you can build a robot that Farms

22:16 billions of runes on Elden ring brilliant has you covered visit

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22:35 and thanks to you for watching I'll see you guys next time peace